With councils across the country making cuts to refuse collections across the board, it's making working out when the black bin is due to be put out difficult to anyone without a working knowledge of combinatorial mathematics. Probability theory and Riemann diagrams help, especially when factoring in the green waste, which is on a different periodicity to the black bin, and glass, which alternates with paper, which occurs every other plastics collection.
Universities are running post graduate courses to their maths degrees, with the PGBB (Post Graduate studies in Black Bins) being the most popular, with the ABGVR (Advanced Black Green and Various Recycling) course in Council Refuse studies being a popular undergraduate option.
'Really, anyone who can work out what stuff to put in which bins correctly, to identify the various acceptable recyclable plastics and reject or set aside the specialist recycling should be able to ace either of these courses,' said Professor Jenkins of the Maths and Recycling department of York University. 'Plus, most councils now issue a four dimensional table clearly showing when to put the bins out anyway,' he added.
